Jack Frawley is currently HEPPP Project Manager (Indigenous Pathways) at Charles Darwin University, and is also an Adjunct Professional Associate of the Australian Institute for Sustainable Communities at the University of Canberra. He was the Deputy Director of Australian Catholic University’s (ACU) Centre for Creative & Authentic Leadership and as Senior Research Fellow for the Centre of Indigenous Education and Research (2002-2014). Jack has a PhD in Social Science from the University of Western Sydney and over 35 years of professional experience in adult education mostly within cross-cultural contexts. This includes extensive work throughout Aboriginal Australia, the South Pacific and South East Asia. The contexts range from community-based adult education programs, professional development programs, Non Government Organisation (NGO) programs, and higher education research and professional projects.
Jack’s work in Aboriginal adult education was first as a community-based adult educator on Bathurst Island, Northern Territory (1984-88), and then at the Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education, Northern Territory (1989-1996), with his last community-based tertiary teaching experience at Gunbalanya, Arnhem Land (2000-2001).
While at ACU, Jack was Project Director for a number of Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade funded Australian Awards Fellowships programs for international educational leaders (2007, 2008, 2010 and 2013). These programs brought together a total of forty-six educational leaders from nine South East Asian countries and two South Pacific countries to attend leadership development programs that, in part, presented alternative views to Western dominated leadership theories and practice and addressed development issues in education. He has also spent over twelve months in Cambodia working on two projects: one as an Endeavour Research Fellow (2009), and the other as part of his University sabbatical (2013). Very early in his career he was a volunteer teacher and education advisor in Kiribati (1981-82) and PNG (1983).
He has a national profile as researcher and writer in the areas of adult education, leadership, intercultural studies and equity evidenced by his involvement in significant research and professional projects, book chapters, refereed articles and other publications. Jack has been an active researcher in several projects included an Australian Research Council funded project that focused on educational leadership in remote Indigenous communities; and two Office of Learning and Teaching funded projects that centred on institutional leadership in the provision of Indigenous higher education, and the experiences of Indigenous postgraduate coursework students. He has presented at several national and international conferences, and continues to publish on, and participate in, leadership and equity research projects.